


And all this devotion was rushing over me…

by JoyfullyyoursDav



Series: Never Let Me Go (Twins' Mom AU series) [6]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Bad Parenting, Child Abandonment, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Original Character(s), Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Canon, Regret, Sad, Shame, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 11:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14079438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoyfullyyoursDav/pseuds/JoyfullyyoursDav
Summary: Taako and Lup's mother is trying to be the mother she should have always been. She reaches out to Fate itself to find the twins, and Istus decides if she will help.





	And all this devotion was rushing over me…

**Author's Note:**

> Part 6! She's gettin' closerrr!
> 
> Title is from Never Let Me Go by Florence + the Machines.

When she wasn’t actively seeking out the gods, the mother named Leema stayed at an inn near the Institute in case they had more information for her. It had been six months since she first met with Ravenstahl. And although she was making herself available, she was a different person now from the anxious woman that had sat in his office six months earlier, begging for scraps. She wasn’t sure Ravenstahl could give her anything of value anymore. Not compared to the divine intervention she was seeking.

She spent a few weeks researching Istus, a goddess she had never heard of. Istus worshipers were few and far between. Not many folks, it seemed, were willing to worship something as callous and unchangeable as Fate itself. Leema finally managed to locate a temple in a dwarven city on the southern coast, and that was enough. She packed her things.

 

The last time Leema had seen the twins, it had been to say goodbye. Dwyn had hounded her for months, demanding that she come around to see them. “But if you’re _on anything_ when you do,” she’d warned in a letter, “I’ll make sure you never see them again.” And Leema—overwhelmed, immature, selfish, _drunk_ —decided, in that moment, that she would leave before she got left. It was childish. It was a decision she made in a moment of anger at Dwyn, at her ex-husband, at the world and at herself.

It was an action she’d never be able to undo.

By then, she hadn’t seen the twins in over a year. When she entered Dwyn’s house, they didn’t react. They didn't run up to her, didn't smile. Taako stood partially in front of Lup, his jaw set. The intensity on his face wasn’t something Leema had ever seen on a child, and it unsettled her. Lup stood behind him, frowning, holding his hand so tightly that her knuckles were white.

“Hello,” Leema said to them, and they didn’t respond.

“I wish you would have told me you were coming, Leema,” Dwyn said, arms crossed.

“Can I have a moment alone with them?” Leema asked, and her sister considered this for a moment before nodding once and leaving the room. She touched the twins' heads as she passed. And this maternal gesture made Leema feel resolute. Ready.

“Do you know who I am?” Leema asked.

“Our mama,” Lup replied.

“Yes. And do you know why you don’t live with me?”

Taako’s gaze dropped to the floor. “You’re sick.”

“Is that what Aunt Dwyn told you?” Leema asked.

The twins nodded.

“Well, she’s right,” Leema said. “I’m sick, and until I get better, I shouldn’t be around you. It’s for your own good, understand? I’m too sick to be around children.” The twins were silent. At the time, Leema interpreted the silence as acceptance. _Ignorant_ , she thought now, as she sat in the back of a covered wagon, making her way south. To think that children as young as six could accept abandonment from their mother as one might accept bad weather during a picnic. She had been willful and wrong.

She closed her eyes. If she ever faced divine judgment—if the gods she was communicating with ever decided to weigh her sins—the scales would surely break from the weight of what she’d done. She was looking for the twins now, yes; searching for them was a choice she’d made long ago. But it was also her choice to let this search consume her, to allow the twins to be her every waking thought, to push through weariness and despair and hopelessness the way she should have done years ago. She was trying, in essence, to give her children what they’d needed as babies: the very best part of herself. The part that wouldn’t give up on them.

Atonement. That’s what she was really seeking. A path toward retribution. A single person or god or ghost to tell her, _y_ _ou’re forgiven. You’re worth forgiving._

 

The temple was located at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. A soft breeze skirted through the beachgrass in front of the temple as Leema knocked on the door. A dwarven priest answered, and was slightly taken aback at first by a new parishioner of Istus. But then he nodded and led Leema through the temple, which was a diamond-shaped stone building with a well-landscaped courtyard in the middle. A white, immaculate fountain was set in the center of the yard, bone-dry and silent.

The priest laid out several stones near the fountain, marking symbols into the dirt and speaking softly to himself. This went on for a time, and just when Leema started wondering how long this was going to take, the water in the fountain started trickling. The noise, though quiet, startled her, and she looked up to say something to the priest, to see that he had vanished.

A goddess had appeared in the form of a beautiful woman sitting on the edge of the fountain. Leema instantly felt like she had been kicked in the chest at the sight. The woman’s skin was a deep umber brown, and her ice-white hair was long, flowing nearly to the floor. When she looked up, her eyes were bright yellow like a cat’s and crinkled at the corners with a smile.

“Leema,” Istus said, as if greeting an old friend. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“H-hello,” Leema stammered, dropping to one knee in reverence. “I’m sorry—I didn’t—”

“Oh, goodness, please stand,” Istus said. She was sewing, Leema realized, stitching a bright red thread into a long piece of fabric that trailed on and on. With a sickening lurch, Leema realized she couldn’t tell _where_ the fabric ended. It seemed to stretch on into infinity. And this thought was so disorienting, Leema began to sway where she stood, nauseated—

“Perhaps you should sit,” Istus suggested, smiling and gesturing to the space on the fountain beside her.

So Leema sat down next to a goddess. “You know who I am?” she asked.

“Of course. You’re the mother of Taako and Lup.” Istus paused, then said, "I’ve thought about you a lot.”

“You have?” Leema asked.

“Yes. Your children are extraordinary. But I’m sure you already think so.”

Tears burned in Leema’s eyes, immediately and unexpectedly, and she blinked, trying to will them away. “I…I don’t actually know that much about them,” she said, potent shame welling up inside her. “I know they’re heroes, but I don’t know the details. And I know they’re powerful, but—”

Istus shook her head, setting the fabric down in between them and looking at Leema steadily now. “I’m not talking about their _accomplishments_ ,” she said, “though they have many, each one more remarkable than the last. No, I’m talking about your heart, Leema. I’m talking about the way your heart feels about your children.”

And that was all it took. Leema began to cry. Until this moment, she hadn’t cried once. Not when the Darkness came, not when the world Awakened. Not when she heard the stories of the Seven Birds, not when she learned who her children really were. Not when she spoke to her beloved sister or made herself reverent for the gods. But now, sitting in the presence of a deity who _knew_ her, who looked at her and immediately saw a mother, Leema wept. She wept for the babies she left, the children she rebuffed, the adults who were strangers, mere shadows to her now. She wept for the horrible things she had done, the damage she’d caused. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed for all that she’d destroyed.

Istus waited, patient and unmoving, until Leema quieted and lifted her head. “Hearts are complicated,” Istus said. “And so much of yours is filled with pain. It keeps you from feeling what lies beneath.”

“Beneath?” Leema asked. In this moment, it seemed nothing was deeper than the gut-wrenching pain she felt. That had always been her trouble. The deepest part of her was wounded, somehow unhealed.

“Yes.” Istus’s smile widened, and it sent a ripple of calming energy throughout Leema’s whole body. “Love, of course. Love is beneath. If you go deep enough, Leema, love is always what you’ll find.”

Leema nodded slowly. “I do,” she said. “I love them.”

“Of course you do.” Istus laughed, a lilting, musical sound.

“Is it true that Lup and Taako are your emissaries, my Lady?” Leema asked.

“Just Taako,” Istus corrected lightly. “I have to be honest with you, Leema. Over the years, I’ve felt very protective of the twins. I’ve thought of myself as something of a surrogate mother to them. Taako became my emissary several years ago, but of course, I’d taken an interest in both of them long before that. And it’s always been obvious to me that their hearts and paths were irrevocably shaped by being motherless.”

Leema nodded, shame twisting inside her once again. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life,” she said softly.

“That’s not needed,” Istus said benevolently. “Everything that happened to them was fated, Leema. In other words, _necessary_ , in order for them to get where they are. And where they are is precisely where they must be. I hope that makes sense to you.”

Leema thought for a moment, then asked, “You said Taako was your emissary, but not Lup?”

“Yes. Lup is sworn to another.” Istus paused, then added quickly, “Again, everything according to Fate.”

Leema’s brow furrowed. “Which deity is Lup sworn to?” she asked.

“The Raven Queen.” Istus was still smiling. “It’s nice symmetry, isn’t it? Both of us deal with Fate, and we both also deal with fated twins.”

“Different deities…how did that happen?” Leema asked.

“They lost each other,” Istus explained. “During the time you know as the Ever-Night. After their century-long mission, for a decade, they were separated from each other. That was when Taako became my emissary. I saw where he’d been, of course, and where he needed to go. He and his friends were very lost, but they were on the right path.” She laughed again. “He still managed to surprise me once or twice, though.”

This—the news that the twins had lost each other, even briefly—was nearly too much for Leema to take. She hadn’t realized until now how comforted she'd been by the fact that the twins had always been together, always had a family, to some degree. “But—but they’re together now?” she asked frantically.

“Oh, yes,” Istus said. “They found each other again, as they’re always fated to do.”

“And they’re _okay_?”

Istus hesitated for a moment, looking down at the fabric still folded between them. “They’re wounded,” she said. “But healing.”

This wasn’t as comforting as Leema had hoped. Istus, seeming to sense her dissatisfaction, said, “Healing is the most we can ever hope for, Leema. That we heal and be healed.”

Leema looked upwards, blinking back more tears. “I wished so much that they’d always been together.”

“In a way, they were. They can’t truly be separated. I think deep down, you must know this.”

And Leema thought of Teru’s small hand holding onto Lemb’s while they slept. “Yes,” she whispered. “It…it kind of freaked me out, actually. How attuned they were to each other. I could never just pick one of them up when they were babies. I had to pick up both or they’d start crying.”

Istus smiled but didn’t say anything as she reached over, picked up the fabric and started stitching again. For a time, they sat together in comfortable silence, the two of them, not-quite mothers of extraordinary twins.

“Would you like to see them?” Istus asked abruptly, and for a moment, Leema felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her.

“Could I?” she gasped. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t dared.

Istus nodded. “Certainly. If you’d like.”

Leema nodded forcefully. “Yes. Yes, please.”

And with that, Istus lifted up a hand, palm facing outward, and drew a large circle in the air, which took form, shimmering for a moment, filling with light and shapeless smoke until—

Leema let out a cry as she saw Taako and Lup inside the window Istus had created. Lup was sitting on a couch in some kind of living room as Taako walked in, carrying a tray with mugs on it. A lanky, long teenager was stretched on the floor nearby, reading a book. A man with glasses was sitting with his arm around Lup’s shoulders. They were laughing and talking, but silently. No noise came through the window.

Leema would have recognized the twins anywhere. She had been holding onto a fear that perhaps she would feel nothing if she ever saw them. Perhaps she would pass them on the street and not know who they were. But no. She felt actual recognition at the sight of them. Her twins. They had her chin and jaw, her eyes. They had their father’s cheekbones, fair hair and warm brown skin. Taako’s smile was crooked on the left, Lup’s was crooked on the right. Mirror images of each other, just as they had always been.

And slowly, a blissful realization washed over her. If nothing else, she had brought the twins into the world. To flourish and do incredible things and save the multiverse, yes. But also to _live_ , to breathe and grow and heal and love—to simply exist was enough. If she did nothing else with her life but that, but give the twins life, she would be fulfilled. Maybe a person’s worth wasn’t condensed to the worst thing they’d ever done. Maybe she could be measured by her _best_ thing. And in Leema’s case, the best thing she’d done was the best thing she could imagine anyone doing.

Istus closed the window with a snap of her fingers.

“Will I ever meet them?” Leema asked in a whisper. She was most anxious about this question, and almost left it unasked. But she needed to know, and who better to ask than Fate?

Istus looked down at the fabric in her hands for a moment. “I cannot tell you what will come to pass,” she said. “But I can tell you there are two possible outcomes. One is what your heart wants. One is not. And as I’m sure you realize, you don’t have control over what happens. Your heart can be pure and you can take all the right steps, but at a certain point, it’s out of your hands.”

Leema nodded, a lump forming in her throat, making it difficult to speak. “Will you help me?” she asked.

Istus smiled sadly. “I’m still protective of them, you know,” she said, “in a way that perhaps I don’t have the right to be. I worry about the path they might go down to meet _you_ , Leema. It’s a path full of pain for them.” Leema nodded, tears burning her eyes once more. “And,” Istus continued, “it’s not my place to guide them one way or another. Or you, for that matter.”

“But you showed them to me,” Leema said desperately. “You can create a door to their world. That’s all I’m asking for, just a door. If they slam it in my face, I’ll accept that.”

“A window is one thing,” Istus said. “A door is quite another.” She looked down at the fabric in her hands again, running her finger along one of the threadlines, back and forth as if reading it with her fingertip. This went on for several minutes.

“You don’t need me,” she finally said. “My intervention is not required here. And my relationship to the twins tells me I shouldn’t meddle in this.”

She paused as Leema began to cry again, loudly, without bothering to cover her face or stop herself. “I _am_ sorry about this,” Istus said, and then Leema blinked, and she was gone. She found herself sitting alone on the edge of a dry, silent fountain. She felt as though something had been swung open and slammed shut inside of her, and immediately, she leaned forward and wretched.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry, I had to make Leema hurt a lil bit more. :((((


End file.
